


songs about you always turn into hymns

by o_morgan



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 15:34:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15585054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/o_morgan/pseuds/o_morgan
Summary: a follow up to what if i fall further than youkelley and alex road trip.





	songs about you always turn into hymns

Portland feels quiet in the week after their semifinal loss.

It’s not the worst loss of her career, not by a long shot, but sympathetic strangers in Thorns gear keep paying for her morning coffee, and Kelley needs space.

“Let’s get out of here,” she says one night, Alex’s legs draped across her own while they scroll through Netflix curled up on the couch in Kelley’s living room.

“We just got home from dinner.”

“No I mean, let’s get out of the city. Let’s take a trip somewhere.” Mana stirs next to them in the armchair she’d fallen asleep in after dinner, and Alex is only half paying attention. “Let’s take a trip, just you and me.”

Alex turns, Kelley suddenly her entire focus, and the defender still isn’t used to being looked at by her like that.

“When do you want to go?”

“Tomorrow.”

Alex laughs, and Kelley feels it across her cheek before she turns to kiss her quiet.

“Fine. you get two days. Pack light.”

 

The next morning there’s a list under Kelley’s coffee cup, places they’d talked about seeing together in the offseason, first as friends and teammates, and now as something more. She scans the list while Alex showers, looking for a sign and then finding it near the bottom of the page in Alex’s careful handwriting.

Zion.

 

Just before Alex goes to sleep that night, the two of them in her bed in her apartment this time, Kelley asks if she owns a sleeping bag and Alex is too tired to question why.

 

 

“I mean, it’s kind of romantic, don’t you think?” Kelley asks, a soft smile still automatic when she gets to say words like those to Alex.

Her confidence fades quickly when Alex narrows her eyes at the back of the old van they’re standing outside of, the doors swung wide open to reveal a mostly empty back end, save for the mattress and some makeshift striped curtains hung across each window.

“This is a van.”

“This is me and you camping under the stars every night.” Alex softens at that, almost instantly, and Kelley knows she’s got her, “Let’s have an adventure.”

Alex still won’t look at her, but her bottom lip is between her teeth and she moves closer to the van, inspecting it one final time. Kelley waits for her shoulders to drop, that subconscious little white flag of surrender.

“Where did you even get this thing?”

“It’s on loan from a friend, don’t worry about it. Come on, Alex.”

“Well, I don’t have sleeping bag,” she says, shoulders dropping when she finally turns to look at Kelley.

“We’ll go get you one right now,” Kelley beams, up on her toes to kiss Alex on the cheek before giving her a soft, suggestive pinch along her hip. “Maybe a double sleeping bag, if you’re lucky.”

 

They spend two hours in the surplus store downtown arguing over sleeping bag colors, but agreeing easily on splurging for the best camp stove coffee maker they can find. They buy too many pairs of wool socks and too much of everything else and Kelley knows all of this won’t actually fit in what little storage the van has to offer, but it doesn’t matter right then, not with the way Alex’s laugh sounds bouncing off the walls of the bargain basement while Kelley tries on ugly hats from a clearance bin just to hear it for a little bit longer.

 

The driver’s side door squeaks and then groans when Kelley yanks it open early the next morning, and the noise cuts cleanly through the silence of the early morning. Alex grunts while she climbs into the passenger seat, grumpy from being awake too early in the offseason, but Kelley’s body hums.

It’s her favorite time of day, that moment when the sun finally cracks the horizon, when the air gets crisp and everything feels brand new, and a morning stretch can cure anything. There are times when she could live in those fleeting moments of sunrise forever, when the Portland weather finally cooperates and she can wake up next to Alex angled just right in Kelley’s bed, the sun painting streaks of gold across her skin while it rises.

It’s been three months and it all still takes her breath away.

Alex is calling her name from the passenger’s seat, that early morning edge in her voice making Kelley roll her eyes regardless of who can’t see it, and she takes one last deep breath as the new sunlight catches her chin before climbing into the driver’s seat, wrenching the door closed with a hefty pull.

“Ready?” she asks, turning to look at Alex, covered now in that rare Portland sun, and Kelley can’t look away.

Kelley gets a shrug in response, Alex still holding on to the illusion of irritability until her smile finally cracks the edges of it. There’s that brief, familiar moment of hesitation that Kelley tries not to over think, Alex pausing just before she leans in to kiss her sometimes, this time with wet lips and coffee on her breath, warm fingers on warm cheeks.

Kelley loves sunrise.

 

Alex loves to sing.

No one believes Kelley when she tells them, that handful of teammates who know about them, Tobin and Mana and Rachel, and Kat who at the very least definitely suspects. Alex doesn’t sing along with the locker room playlists, or on the team bus, even after a win. There’s exaggeratedly bad dancing sometimes, headphones firmly over her ears the rest of the time, and focus always after the season she’s had.

They’ve already slept together a handful of times and been together for weeks before Alex leans over suddenly to turn up the car radio on the way home from training one day, a vintage pop song blasting through the speakers and then from the bottom of Alex’s lungs. It’s loud and off key and completely unashamed, and it pulls an awed laugh from Kelley.

“Since when do you sing?” she’d asked, and the shy shrug she’d gotten in response had left a warm ache in Kelley’s chest that lasted for days.

That song makes every one of Kelley’s playlists from then on, and it’s filtering through the bluetooth speakers currently wedged into the space where the windshield meets the cracked dashboard of their borrowed van.

Alex has her window down, and her voice gets picked up and carried away by the wind that’s tangling her hair, but Kelley knows she’s singing.

 

They have two weeks and no plans other than an eventual destination, and on that first day they drive until they run out of coffee, somewhere just past the Idaho border, and then a little further north.

Instead of refills they buy a camping permit.

They park in a spot surrounded by tall trees and a view of the mountains, not another camper in sight. When Kelley swings open the back doors of the van to dig out a pair of running shoes she’s hoping to get dirty on the trail that starts not far from their camp, Alex is right behind her, arms stretched out high above her head before she kicks off flip flops and sets to work unrolling the double sleeping bag across the mattress in the back. She crawls in first, settling on top of the sleeping bag before she reaches a hand out, her fingers wiggling until Kelley takes them and lets herself be pulled inside.

“Nap,” Alex breathes

There’s a breeze that blows through the open doors, their bare feet pointed towards the mountains and then tangled together when Alex drapes long limbs across Kelley’s small frame.

 

The nap lasts longer than they mean for it to, those cross country playoff trips still heavy in their bones, but they crawl out of the back eventually, for food and a walk and watching the fading sunset from a couple of camp chairs set up with the slightest gap between them.

They’re too tired to mess with the propane stove so they eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches Alex had packed away for just in case. Kelley picks away her crust while telling a story about the time she’d gotten lost in the woods on her family’s first camping trip, and when Alex doesn’t laugh at the image of Karen O’Hara tying a makeshift leash around her five year old’s waist for the rest of the trip, Kelley looks over at her and it’s as if her heart is suddenly in a vise grip. Alex’s profile is traced in moonlight, her neck stretched towards the sky while she stares up at it, half a peanut butter and jelly forgotten in her hand, and Kelley gives silent thanks for being the only person who’s ever been able to see Alex look exactly like this.

“It’s beautiful,” Alex says eventually, and Kelley’s still staring at her when she nods in agreement.

Alex catches on, like she can hear the squeaky hinge of Kelley’s jaw hanging open while she stares, and she turns in her chair to stare right back.

“You want to christen that sleeping bag?”

Kelley does.

They do.

 

It’s soft, the way it always is, and a little shy, the way it sometimes still is. They kiss for a long time, and peel away at clothes when they want to, and Alex is trying desperately to be quiet out of habit until Kelley reminds her that Mana isn’t in the next room to tease her in the morning, so she lets herself get a little louder, over the top just enough so Kelley will laugh against her sticky skin.

 

Kelley has fetched Alex’s morning coffee for years, as national team roommates, then club team roommates, and now as whatever they’re comfortably undefined as. Girlfriends, partners, lovers. It’s a minor price to pay for always being the first one awake, but Kelley minds it even less now, when having to carefully extract herself from under Alex’s sleep-heavy limbs becomes another part of her morning routine.

It’s a harder task in a sleeping bag, Kelley bumping knees with Alex so many times while she’s pulling on layers that she’s sure Alex is going to wake up cranky and uncaffeinated, but she manages and eventually there’s coffee brewing in the percolator with one quick google search on how to actually light a propane stove.

She lets Alex sleep, burrowed deep into the sleeping bag the last time she’d checked on her, and Kelley points her chair towards the mountains and sips at her coffee and waits.

There’s stirring behind her eventually, the slow drag of a zipper and a few expletives about how damn cold it is, and then Alex’s heavy footsteps are at her back, the other camp chair dragged along behind her until it’s pulled up right next to Kelley’s.

“You figured out the stove.”

“Oh yeah, it was super easy. You want some coffee?”

“Not yet,” she says, her raspy voice made worse with early mornings, scratchy and thick like her words need a little extra coaxing to come out, and Kelley could listen to it forever.  
Alex kisses Kelley on the curve of her neck, that sliver of exposed skin that’s warm and smells like sweat and sleep, and it feels practiced, like she’s done it a hundred times before but she hasn’t. It’s brand new and sends electricity through Kelley just as Alex drops into the chair next to her, draping the unzipped double sleeping bag across both of their laps and tucking everything but her head underneath to avoid the early morning cold. Kelley curls in too, instantly warmer with another layer and another new Alex thing to think about endlessly.

“This camping thing isn’t so bad,” Alex stares off at the mountains, the tip of her nose the slightest shade of red.

“Because we had sex in a car and I made you coffee in the morning?”

“It’s a van. And yes.”

“What if I made you pancakes to go along with that coffee?”

 

“Then I would potentially love camping.”

“Cool.”

A thick cloud of morning fog starts a slow roll through their camp, and Kelley turns towards Alex, “What if I made you those pancakes after we hide out in the van until it warms up.”

“Very cool.”

 

They stay another night because they can, and because Kelley likes the way the mountain air smells, and the way it makes her feel, calm and gentle and light. It doesn’t take much to convince Alex, a soft kiss just after Kelley asks, the promise of a warmer night, and then the rest of Kelley’s lunchtime pancakes handed over when all of that still isn’t quite enough.

Kelley finally gets to run that trail just outside their campsite. There’s a knowing look from Alex just before she heads out, one Kelley knows she can’t help, that silent plea to be careful after everything they’ve both been through, and Kelley’s run is just enough caution mixed with just enough speed that she practically floats back into camp when she’s finished. Kelley kisses her over the camp stove and another round of pancakes.

 

They catch the whole sunset this time, and the flickering on of stars just after that. Kelley strings up lights across the ceiling of the van with strips of duct tape while Alex waits outside, complaining loudly about the false promise of a warm night before the van doors swing open to reveal Kelley and their little makeshift home bathed in soft white light.

“Dammit,” Alex groans, and Kelley’s smile pulls even wider.

Alex almost loves camping.

 

Alex tells Kelley about the first time she ever broke curfew in high school while they’re tucked together under strands of warm light, and when she gets to the part about getting stuck in a doggie door, the laugh it pulls from Kelley is big and loud and contagious with the way Alex starts laughing too, until her hands find Kelley’s face, and she kisses them both quiet.

She breathes deep, breathes all of Kelley in, and exhales with the slightest crinkle of her nose, “You smell like sweaty pine trees.”

“Sorry?”

“It’s ok, I still l-” Alex’s voice catches in her throat, and there’s a quick, hard swallow to unstick her words while she stares up, suddenly transfixed by the lights above them, and then a bright smile when she turns her head back towards Kelley. “I still like you. Even if you do stink.”

A quiet settles over them then, just long enough for Kelley to catch the bob in Alex’s throat once, twice, and then she twists herself around Alex and breaks the silence.

“So, did you ever make it out of that doggie door?”

Alex laughs.

 

The only picture Kelley remembers to take in their whole time at camp is the one she snaps on their last morning, Alex at the edge of camp, staring at the mountains and bathed in sunrise.

 

They pay for lukewarm showers on the way out of camp, slipping into the same stall to save water and time. Alex scrubs Kelley’s hair clean twice just to make a point, and then they’re back on the road, their damp hair soaking the tops of their shirts and air drying through open car windows.

 

Alex takes her turn behind the wheel without much protest, and the way she drives is nothing like the way she plays. She nudges above the speed limit slowly, cruise control when they hit a straightaway, one hand loose on the steering wheel like there’s nothing weighing her down. Kelley curls into the passenger seat, and watches her in fleeting glances, trying to not get caught. Alex is focused and quiet, her free hand twisting through her hair, and Kelley suddenly wants to hear her voice above the playlist coming low through the speakers.

“Hey Al?”

Alex answers with a hum out of the side of her mouth, eyes still on the road, but Kelley needs words.

“I think we should name the van.”

Kelley gets Alex’s dumb laugh first, which is almost as good, and then, “I already did.”

“You can’t name this van without me, you didn’t even like it until yesterday.”

“Ok well I named it Vandy Cohen, because you know, Sandy Cohen from The OC, who once lived in the back of a mail truck with his super cute girlfriend Kirsten, which is basically us.”

“Wow,” Kelley says, not even bothering to put up a fight. “That’s really good.”

“Plus, Sandy Cohen went to Berkeley.” Alex shrugs, and then her laugh spills out too easily across the steering wheel.

“You’re so annoying.”

Alex looks over at her then, so proud of her gentle deceit that she laughs harder until there are deep lines forming at the corner of her eyes, like Kelley’s cut softly into her skin.

 

It rains on their last night in Idaho.

Alex cuts them across the lower half of the state in decent time, outrunning pitch black storm clouds for hours until pit stops for fuel and lunch at a greasy diner put them right in the storm’s path, and Kelley almost volunteers to take over driving when she catches Alex’s white knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

“Typical Californian,” she jokes, trying to keep Alex calm while heavy rain floods the windshield.

Alex, of course, takes the gentle teasing as a challenge, her and google maps suddenly turning into an unstoppable team, navigating them slowly but steadily to the campground they’d agreed on in the morning, a spot along the lake where they could watch the sunset from their camp chairs while dinner cooked behind them.

The rain ruins their plans in a better way, a warm dinner and a sunset replaced with gas station snacks and the two of them stretched out across their sleeping bag, kissing while rain drops ping across the roof. The windows of the van start to fog and they peel away from each other for water and food and stale air. Alex pushes sweaty strands of hair from Kelley’s cheeks, and drops a quick kiss to her lips, her jaw, the curve of her neck as she rolls over the top of her and towards the bags of chips and jerky shoved into what little free space the van has to offer.

Kelley listens to her dig around in the bag from her spot on the mattress, hand over her heart just to feel the way it still races, and then she’s up suddenly at the sound of a certain package being opened, scrambling across the mattress just as Alex is reaching for the last oreo. Kelley loops her finger through the bracelet around Alex’s wrist and tugs.

“You were trying to sneak the last oreo three feet from my face.”

“Is that why you bought me this?” Alex beams, unashamed at being caught with her hand in a sort of cookie jar.

Kelley had picked it up at the last stop, a cheap friendship bracelet, red and black string braided together in a color combo that now instantly reminds her of home, and work, and Alex. She’d added it quietly to the pile of chips and sour candy at the register, just a little joke of a souvenir, but when she’d tied it around Alex’s wrist at the gas pump of a truck stop, she’d felt so unexpectedly shy about the whole thing that her fingers struggled with the knot twice before she’d finally been able to pull it tight. Alex had kissed at the blush across her cheek just as the gas pump clicked off.

“I bought you that bracelet because you’re my best friend, dummy. And I bought those oreos for me so hand it over.”

Alex does without hesitation, and something about how easily she’d given it up makes Kelley want to kiss her right there and tell her it was a joke, that she can just have the whole thing, but instead she twists apart the cookie and hands Alex the side with more frosting. Alex scrapes the frosting away with her teeth, and there’s cookie crumbs at the corner of her mouth when she presses Kelley back into the mattress with a kiss.

Alex’s hands are on her face, the loose strings of her bracelet tickling the curve of Kelley’s neck, and the weight of her across Kelley’s ribs feels a little more familiar every time they’re together.

She’s learned a lot in three months, more than she ever thought she’d have the chance to. There are all the new ways Alex can say her name, scratchy with sleep or laced with naked adoration, choked out towards the sky on late nights when they share a bed. She likes to pace her living room when she calls her mom on Sunday nights just to talk, eventually she paces Kelley’s living room too, a movie paused in the background while Kelley flips through a magazine and pretends not to listen for her name. There’s the patient way she waits for Kelley to finish her morning prayers on the balcony when she spends the night, her feet propped up on the railing with a blanket pulled around her shoulders, coffee cooling next to their chairs. She knows that Alex loves Portland even though it tries hard not to love her back, and that she’s certain every goal she scores wearing that crest chips away at its resistance.

She also really hates eggplant.

Alex’s teeth close in on Kelley’s earlobe, a soft scrape with just enough pressure, and Kelley’s learned what this means too, or what it would have meant if not for the steady drip of water that’s suddenly pooling by her head.

They both realize it at the same time, what five hours of constant rain has done to the roof of the van, and Kelley’s up and scrambling for an empty cup while Alex huffs with red lips.

“Vandy Cohen, you asshole.”

 

An hour later the hole in the roof is patched over with half a roll of duct tape and an extra sock, and Kelley just wants dry clothes and sleep. There’s a wolf whistle from the mattress when she peels away her damp shirt, and then a loud groan when she pulls on a dry long sleeve.

“Hey, stop objectifying me, I’m cold and tired,” Kelley says as she crawls into the small space allotted to her between the van wall and Alex, now that an entire corner of their sleeping bag is soaked with rain water.

The rain outside starts again, just enough to make a little noise against the roof, and Kelley’s already half asleep by the time she settles into her spot. Alex curls in after her, and her deep exhale across Kelley’s neck relaxes every tense muscle in her body. Her eyes close, and everything is quiet.

“Kelley?” comes out as a whisper from beside her, minutes, or maybe hours, later, her words low and hesitant like it’s a test.

She’s too close to sleep to answer, her breaths deep and even. Alex keeps on, softer but less hesitant. Her voice is foggy in Kelley’s ear, but she can just make out the shape of the words as they start to spill out. Alex only says it once, and the words tumble around inside Kelley’s head until the soft edges are finally sharp enough to carve themselves into the walls of her chest forever.

Her eyes open with a flurry of blinks, but her mouth can’t make a sound.

Alex loves Kelley.

 

Kelley cooks breakfast alone the next morning, the sleeves of her flannel pulled over her knuckles, a layer of protection from something other than the cold.

Alex is still in the van.

All the doors are swung open wide, airing out the sleeping bag and the moisture that clings to everything else. Alex sits in the passenger seat, feet kicked up on the dashboard while she types furiously on her phone. Kelley filters through the list of people who would even be up at 7am on a Sunday to get a text like that and none of the possibilities are good.

The longer Alex stays in the van the more pancakes Kelley burns, distracted by Alex’s unreadable demeanor, and hoping she isn’t texting Mana.

It’s only been three months.

Alex thought she was asleep, but Alex is also still in the van.

“Shit,” Kelley growls, forgetting about another pancake until the smell of burnt bisquick is in her nose again.

This one’s bad and she’s scraping it out with a spatula and a little too much aggression when she hears a shutter sound behind her, chased by Alex’s quick laugh.

“Hey,” Kelley says, and it comes out flat, undecided on whether it’s a greeting or a protest.

“Just a little proof that you actually do suck at something,” Alex grins. “Are there any you didn’t fuck up?”

“A few,” Kelley says, digging around in the stack for salvageable pancakes before handing them over to Alex, who takes them gratefully, a bright smile and a kiss to Kelley’s cheek in exchange for food.

Alex jokes and smiles and laughs, and Kelley is almost sure now that the words she’d said last night were just a sort of practice run, like trying on a winter coat in the summer, testing the fit for later.

Kelley doesn’t really know what to do with that either.

 

The battery in the bluetooth speaker dies first, and Kelley should have taken it as a sign.

The radio picks up nothing but static and random blasts of christian hymns for an hour before Kelley finally, hesitantly, clicks it off, and she almost misses the white noise when the van fills with silence.

Alex is asleep in the passenger seat. They’d barely made it out of camp before she’d tucked her legs up into the seat, angled away from Kelley, and pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her head. Alex has napped in that seat before, twenty minutes at a time during long stretches of straight road after she swears she’ll stay awake to keep Kelley entertained with bad jokes and increasingly risky rounds of ‘would you rather’, but it’s different this time. Alex sleeps, and sleeps, and sleeps, until Kelley’s suddenly cursing and the van is slowing down too fast, gravel popping underneath the tires as they roll onto the shoulder.

“What happened?” Alex asks, but there isn’t a hint of sleep in her voice.

“I don’t know, I think it overheated, maybe?” Kelley tries to turn over the engine once, twice, but nothing happens.

“You think?”

“Well I’m not a mechanic so yes, I think.”

“So now we’re just stuck on the side of the road?” Sleep is heavy in her voice, but there’s an edge to it that Kelley doesn’t want to become too familiar with. “I knew this would happen, this stupid thing is held together with fucking duct tape.”

“Dude, relax,” Kelley says, casual like they’re still just friends, even though Alex hated being told that even when they were.

Alex glares and unbuckles her seatbelt, then she’s out the door without a word, slamming it shut behind her with a little too much power. Kelley gives her a minute, and then a few more, watching Alex stalk down the shoulder in her rearview mirror.

“Alex, can you please get back in the van?”

The road is empty and they haven’t seen another car for what feels like hours, and Kelley barely has to yell to cover the distance between her and the rock Alex has settled on.

“No,” is Alex’s response, and then with a little less edge, “I just need a break.”

Alex gets her break, and thirty minutes pass before there’s a tow truck backing up towards the van and Kelley starts towards her with a bottle of water and a baseball cap pulled low across her eyes.

“This guy’s gonna give us a ride into the next town after he hooks up the van, ok?” Alex hasn’t looked up, and Kelley holds the water out towards her. “I’m really sorry, Al. The van seemed fine, so I wasn’t paying attention to the dashboard.”

“It’s fine, it’s not your fault. Let’s just get out of here.”

Alex takes the water but she doesn’t open it.

 

The only mechanic in town is already gone for the day, gone fishing according to the sign hanging from the door, and Kelley can feel the ripple that peels off of Alex’s tense shoulders, and then she’s off again, stalking towards the motel across the street. Kelley has to jog, and dodge a car, to keep up.

The motel office is muggy and cramped, and the large man sitting behind the counter gives Kelley a sideways glance up from his computer, and considers her for a minute too long, before holding a key out towards Alex.

“I’ve got a room available, but it’s just the one queen sized bed, so you two are gonna have to share or something. Next closest hotel is thirty minutes north.”

“Well that’s fine, because this is my girlfriend and we like sleeping together,” Alex swipes away the room key that’s dangling from the end of his finger. “Get a grip, Robert, it’s 2014.”

The bell above the office door jingles and Kelley can only shrug a non-apology at Robert before she’s at Alex’s heels yet again.

“Hey, can you stop? I’m sorry about the van, ok? I’m trying to get it fixed as fast as I can for you.” Kelley gets a grip on Alex’s elbow, a gentle pull to stop her, and Alex turns quick.

“Why didn’t you say you loved me back?”

Kelley stops so suddenly that her shoes scuff across the asphalt and she comes to an awkward halt right against Alex, who backs away to put too much space between them.

“What?”

“I know you weren’t asleep. I heard you stop breathing after I said it.”

“Alex, I- ” but Kelley doesn’t know what should come next.

Alex’s eyes don’t look away, they’re steady and patient, a complete contradiction to the way her breaths come too quickly, and Kelley can feel the words start to bubble up, because she does, she does.

She does.

Kelley’s mouth drops open, and Alex’s eyes go wide.

“Wait, stop,” Alex’s hands are in her hair, over her eyes, and then eventually they’re covering her mouth, eyes still big while she stares at Kelley. “Please don’t, even if you do. Not like this, ok? I’m so sorry. I don’t know what that was, everything just started to feel a little claustrophobic, in the van and in my head. Just don’t say it yet. I’m sorry, ok? Like, really sorry.”

Kelley’s still quiet.

“I do love you though,” Alex says, ducking her head while the toe of her shoe drags across the asphalt, shy in a way that’s painfully endearing. “And I’ve been very sure about it since we left Portland in your stupid van, but you can be ready whenever you want, ok?”

She swallows back at the words that threaten to spill out again, so easily now of course, and then Kelley reaches over to nudge Alex with the back of her hand instead, a goofy, teasing tone when she says, “You love me.”

Alex kisses the start of a laugh off her lips.

 

In the rundown bar next to their motel, Kelley buys rounds of cheap beer and cheeseburgers, waving off Alex’s attempts at taking a turn to buy.

“We’re probably gonna need all that Nike money to get the van out of the shop,” Kelley grins.

“You’re funny,” Alex says, just before inhaling another bite of her burger.

“Is that how I landed you, my quick wit?”

Alex shakes her head, mouth still full from her too-big bite to speak her reasons why, so instead she taps her finger to the space on Kelley’s chest where she knows her heart is, the beats suddenly quicker now. She reaches for Kelley’s half-empty beer to wash the rest of her burger down, a smile behind the neck of the bottle, and Kelley can’t believe her luck.

“Plus,” Alex says, “You’re really hot.”

Kelley kisses her in their dark corner of the bar then, just enough tongue and pointed pressure to get Alex to pull them outside and across the parking lot, right into their cheap motel room with the one queen bed.

There’s no lingering shyness now when Alex peels away clothes and traces curves with the tips of her fingers, hands eager and steady. She whispers her declarations of love across flushed skin, the drag of her lips leaving trails of goosebumps in their wake, and Kelley comes undone so easily.

 

“What?”

Alex’s voice cuts through the clinking silverware white noise that fills the diner in the early morning. Kelley sits across from her, grinning from behind her coffee cup and a plate full of breakfast food that isn’t pancakes.

“What what?”

“Why do you keep smiling at me like that?” Alex asks.

“Nothing.”

“Tell me.”

Kelley shrugs, that smile still there, too big to try and hide, and her voice drops to a low rumble, “Last night was like, the best I’ve ever had.”

“The best what?”

Kelley rolls her eyes, and drops her voice lower, “The best sex.”

“What?” Alex yells, before Kelley is shushing her and avoiding the many sets of eyes suddenly on their booth.

“Please relax or I will never compliment you again.”

Alex pushes her plate back, enough room for her elbows to rest on the edge of the table before she cups her hands around her mouth and stage whispers “Best ever?”

“Yes,” Kelley admits.

“Wow,” Alex says, leaning back in the booth to let it settle over her, a smug grin forming on her face. “Best ever.”

“Don’t let this go to your head, there’s always room for improvement.”

Alex springs forwards then, grabbing her coffee mug and holding it out towards Kelley.

“Too late, we’re gonna cheers to this,” Alex beams, clinking her mug against Kelley’s without waiting for reciprocation.

Kelley almost says it then.

 

The speaker’s still dead, forgotten in the van while it spent a day in a shop getting a few hundred dollars worth of repairs, and Kelley’s knock knock jokes only get them a few miles out of town before Alex is yawning and shifting lower in her seat.

“Hey, come on, no sleeping. Keep me company. I’ve got a long stretch.”

Alex resists a little longer, just enough to make Kelley beg in that little voice she likes, and then she pulls a paperback book from the glove box, her feet settling up on the dashboard while she flips through the pages to find her place.

Kelley doesn’t know the book, doesn’t know the plot or a single character, but Alex’s voice is in her ear and she almost says it then too, but that moment feels too big for this one, Kelley’s eyes on the road and Alex’s buried in a book, four pine tree scented air fresheners dangling from the rearview mirror.

Loving Alex isn’t new, but the immensity of it is.

It’s only been three months, but the smell of Alex’s soft perfume is permanent across Kelley’s pillowcase and to call her her girlfriend already doesn’t feel like enough. Alex fills her lungs and steadies her heartbeat as easily as she can make it race, and deep in her belly Kelley prays this might be the last first time she says those words that still catch in her throat.

 

There’s one last campsite before Zion, open space with a sky full of stars, a paper bag full of greasy burgers in Alex’s lap while Kelley climbs up next to her on the hood.

“I’m scared of heights,” Kelley says suddenly, just over the shrill chirp of crickets and Alex digging around in the bag for forgotten fries until she’s suddenly not.

“Really? I didn’t know that.”

Alex’s voice is soft, like she’s been let in on a secret, this new detail about Kelley she gets to love, and the knowing smile she’ll get to have when it’s mentioned over drinks with new friends they’ll make. Kelley’s cheek is warm with a blush when Alex kisses her there.

“It’s never come up before, I guess. I just thought I should mention it before tomorrow.”

“When we climb that really tall peak with the scary looking drop offs?”

“Exactly,” Kelley nods. “It’s not like a paralyzing fear, I’ll be fine, I just wanted you to know. You know?”

Alex nods, “Yeah, I get it.”

“I know you do,” Kelley whispers then, just before she leans in to kiss Alex, a hand on her neck and then tangled in her hair, kissing her slow and deep until Alex has to pull back, slow exhales across wet lips.

“Kell?” is the soft whisper against her mouth, and Kelley’s response is a hum.

“You taste like a cheeseburger and I’m super into it.”

Kelley laughs until there’s nothing left, and then she kisses her again until the angle she’s turned in settles an ache low across her back, and then Kelley pulls her off the hood and into the van.

 

Kelley’s heart is racing and for the first time since they left Portland, Alex isn’t the cause of it.

It feels like sensory overload, being in this place. Impossibly high cliff walls, red earth and the bluest sky she’s ever seen, and every quick peek of scenery feels so risky when the toes of her hiking boots scrape so close to the edge of those same cliffs she marvels at. She’s scared and overwhelmed and so in awe of what’s in front of her.

It’s a familiar feeling these last few days.

She’d told her mom what they were doing in Zion the first night they’d set up camp just inside the park, and she’d gotten a call back hours later, Karen’s tone on the other end more serious this time when she makes Kelley promise to be careful, and Kelley laughs as she’s hanging up. Her stomach flips and she tucks herself further down into the sleeping bag, so the edges are up over her shoulder and Alex moves in tighter, close enough to whisper.

“We don’t have to do this, you know? This place is amazing, we can hike something different, something a little less touch the sky levels.”

“I’m not scared,” Kelley says, eyes locked on the roof of the van. “This was my idea, and I want to do it. Are you scared?”

“I’m not scared,” Alex says, her voice steady and far away, and Kelley knows she’s not talking about the hike.

It’s called angel’s landing because someone once said that a place that tall is a place where only angels could land, and for some reason Kelley really thought it would be a good idea to see the earth from the top of it. She doesn’t think that now, while her hand is gripping a length of chain built into the walls of the cliff solely to keep her from falling off the side of the mountain.

Alex is ahead of her, moving along the trail like she’s done it a million times before, the chain sliding between hands freely as she climbs.

Kelley’s scared, but it has nothing to do with being at the edge of a cliff.

There’s another step forward, too hesitant, and her feet scuff along loose rock.

“Al?” is all she can manage.

Alex turns and there’s a soft smile just before she heads back towards Kelley, who’s pinned herself against a rock, still gripping the chain with white knuckles.

“I’m stuck,” she says quietly. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

“It’s ok,” Alex tells her, steady hands on flushed cheeks. “You’re almost there.”

The wind picks up behind her and just over Alex’s shoulder is beauty like she’s never seen, valleys and trees and a big open sky, immensity. The bracelet Kelley had tied around her wrist days earlier breaks free of Alex’s sleeve and the frayed edges ghost across Kelley’s cheek and she feels a steadiness bloom through her body.

Kelley’s hand drops the chain, and the words come easy.

“Alex, I love you.”

“I know,” Alex smiles, bigger than Kelley’s ever seen, and nods back towards the trail behind them. “Now let’s get you up this mountain so you can tell me again at the top of the world.”

There's a smile and a nod, but she’s already there.

Kelley loves Alex.

**Author's Note:**

> jenny gets a shoutout because of her dedication and hard work in forcing everyone to read APM


End file.
